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Sample Sermon

Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts
of joy. They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they
return with the harvest. Psalm 126: 5-6

Today marks the beginning of National Crime Victims' Rights
Week, a week when we are asked to remember and honor innocent victims
of crime and those who serve them in so many different capacities throughout
our communities, states, and country.

Each one of us here today has most likely been touched
in one way or another by crime. Some of us have had our own personal experiences;
others of us know loved ones, friends, or neighbors who have suffered
painful and sometimes tragic losses through no fault of their own. Every
time we turn on the television set or pick up a newspaper, we are reminded
of the destruction that human beings can wreak upon each other as we are
confronted with news stories and statistics about child abuse, homicide,
family violence, abuse of the elderly, financial crimes, drunk driving
crashes, rape, and victimization of individuals with disabilities. And
it often seems that the most vulnerable members of our communitieschildren,
elderly individuals, people with mental and physical disabilitiesare
the ones that we are least able to protect.

The tragedies that unfold in peoples' lives as a result
of crime victimization are excruciatingly painful, and it is very human
to want to seek vengeance when a wrong has been committed. When we hear
of such atrocities, or even worse, when we experience them ourselves within
our own families, our own neighborhoods, our own communities and churches,
we are filled with a sense of outrage and disbelief. We feel we must do
something to right such a wrong, to somehow return the traumatized victims
and their families to what life was like before this terrible incident
occurred.

Psalm 126 reminds us that we are not alone in the suffering
that is inflicted by the maltreatment and abuse of others. This can be
difficult for victims of crime to remember as they confront the grim and
forever altered aftermath of their lives after victimization. There is
so much to despair and grieve in the broken relationships and connections
that are torn asunder by crime. There are some relationships that cannot
be repaired, losses that irrevocably change lives, and murdered victims
who will never return to us in this life.

Perhaps one of the most important things we can do is
be the messengers to victims and their loved ones that they are, indeed,
not alone. That they are promised a new day when their tears shall become
shouts of joy. This does not mean that we should encourage crime victims
to forget their pain; however, in simply being with our brothers and sisters
who are suffering from victimization and in acknowledging the unspeakable
tragedies they are enduring, we can offer them a glimmer of hope that
is promised beyond this suffering. We can help them put one foot in front
of the other, with just the tiniest of steps at first, in slowly making
their way out of paralyzing despair and hopelessness and into the first
glimmer of life after victimization.

The theme for this year's National Crime Victims' Rights
Week is Victims' Rights: Reach for the Stars. Reaching for the
stars is a fitting comparison to what we ask crime victims to do when
recovering from the trauma of victimization. Believing that they can recover,
believing that God is there for them throughout their suffering may at
first seem as inconceivable as believing they might reach out and touch
the stars. Although it is difficult for crime victims to really "recover"
from crime in terms of returning to the state of their lives prior to
victimization, we can assist them in the very long process of adjustment
and acceptance to whatever changes in their lives the victimization has
wrought. For many crime victims, this long process is a "dark night of
the soul" and filled with despair, anger, and hopelessness at the injustice
of random and unexplained violence and violation.

Even though it is extremely difficult to be with people
who are experiencing such tragedy, this is exactly where we can be most
helpfulin physically being present with victims and reminding them,
when the time is right, that God is present in their lives and will assist
them in the long journey ahead. We can remind them, again when they are
ready to hear, that some day their tears will be harvested with joy and
they will return from the harvest singing. We can't explain to them why
terrible injustices can occur, any more than we can explain why horrible
things happen every day throughout the world. We can only help them in
every way we can to do what they need to do to proceed on their journey,
and remain steadfast in our faith that God is there guiding us all along
the way.

One of the hardest things in life to do is to be present
with another individual who is in intolerable painphysical, emotional,
psychological, or spiritual. Everything in us cries out to make it better,
to do something to take away the pain. But sometimes all we are asked
to do is to sit still and listen and simply be there for someone. And
again, when the time is right and in many different ways, we can be the
voice that reminds one of our brothers or sisters that God is still there,
like the ever present stars in the heavens. In reaching out to our friends
and neighbors in need, we are a physical reminder of God's presence, and
maybe we can be the one person who is able to bring someone back from
the brink of hopelessness and despair and encourage them to make that
first tiny effort at "reaching for the stars," at reaching out for new
life and new meaning in the midst of tragedy, at reaching out and reclaiming
their own lives in a journey of faith.